Avadis "Avie" Tevanian is a former Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Apple Computer

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

 from 1997 to 2003, and a former Chief Software Technology Officer from 2003 to 2006. He is a member of the board of embedded software

Computer software

Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....

 tools company Green Hills Software

Green Hills Software

Green Hills Software is a privately owned company that builds operating systems and development tools for embedded systems. The company was founded in 1982 by Dan O'Dowd and Carl Rosenberg...

. Tevanian was responsible for setting company-wide software technology direction at Apple. He is of Armenian

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 descent.

Originally from Westbrook, Maine, Avie Tevanian received his B.A. in Mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 from the University of Rochester

University of Rochester

The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...

, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 from Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

. Tevanian was an important figure in the development of the Mach kernel

Mach (kernel)

Mach is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computation. Although Mach is often mentioned as one of the earliest examples of a microkernel, not all versions of Mach are microkernels...

 while at Carnegie Mellon; he later worked for NeXT Computer

NeXT

Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...

 and later at Apple, both times brought over by Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

. At Apple, he was the primary figure in the development of Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

. In United States v. Microsoft, he was a witness for the United States Department of Justice

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

, testifying against Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

.

Tevanian left Apple on March 31, 2006. In May 2006, it was announced that Tevanian had joined the board of Tellme Networks

Tellme Networks

Tellme. Networks, Inc. is a company founded in 1999 by Mike McCue and Angus Davis, based out of Mountain View, California, in the United States, that specializes in telephone-based applications....

.

On January 12, 2010 private equity firm Elevation Partners

Elevation Partners

Elevation Partners is an American private equity firm that invests in intellectual property and media and entertainment companies. The firm has $1.9 billion of assets under management....

 announced that Tevanian joined the firm as Managing Director. Former Apple CFO Fred
Anderson

Fred D. Anderson

See Fred Anderson for others with similar names.Fred D. Anderson is an American business executive known for his time with Apple Inc. and as a managing director and co-founder of Elevation Partners.-Biography:...

is a Managing Director and co-founder of Elevation Partners. He
is quoted as saying:

"Avie and I worked closely together at Apple for many years and I have
always admired his engineering talent and leadership, his strategic vision
for how software can transform businesses and his ability to execute on
that vision. We are proud that he has decided to join Elevation and
believe he will be a huge asset as we explore new investment
opportunities"